Enter Your E-mail address to Receive OpEdNews Newsletter Tell A Friend  Contribute $$ to OpEdNews

Bush Admin Pushes Grabbing Babies From Poor Women So Wealthy Can Adopt

by Linda Webber,

(plus numerous letters to the editor in response

OpEdNews.com
Hello:
    I am one voice joined with others finding their voices for the millions of Mothers and children of adoption wounds. Some have found their voices and some that haven't yet. I have held adopted persons and Mothers in my arms as they sobbed about the pain of being without each other. Many of us Moms are sick and or dying young from the grief of having our children taken from us by adoption brokers. Only in America will a community gather around a woman who's child has been kidnapped and offer validation for her pain and yet will tell a Mother and adopted person that has lost each other to coercion to be grateful for the act of separating them from each other. I have held many Moms and adopted while they sobbed about being hurt from adoption. There are cases where adopted persons and Mothers have committed suicide do to the trauma of adoption. Many adopted teens are in treatment centers. These are the truths you will seldom be told because adoption is very Politically correct now.

      We are then told that times have changed. Well, Not really....There's is a push now by President Bush and some of his church-based adoption agencies to bring back the good old days when all a women needed to be was young, no family support and little to no social welfare programs in place to lose her baby to adoption. 

Because now there are more choices for women and parental help the government is trying their best to take away those choices to make room for more adoption of infants to wealthy clients of adoption agencies.

First, welfare reform has caused more woman and children to fall into the worst poverty that we have seen in a long time, Second, they want to stop the choice of abortion. There's a real pebble in their shoe and it is what young women have today they didn't have and that is parental support. First our government,  furthering the Republican agenda of baby selling baby in America, voted for "The Infant adoption awareness act." But what to do with those pesky parents/grandparents?  The answer is HR 7 that would reintroduce "group homes for unwed mothers" We all know that thought control/coercion works best in a closed or non-existent  support system. So, Can we say it's starting to look a lot like the 50's, 60's and even past there to some extent? Those of us that were sent away to the Prisons for unwed Mothers do not want to see those horrid places in anyway shape or form emerge again.

Under President Bush's watch we are witnessing going backwards not forward when it comes to the rights of woman and children.  It is scaring the heck out of us Moms and many adopted persons that are the direct result of the baby scoop era.  We are fearful for the young scared Moms that will fall prey to these adoption brokers. An adoption agency in Texas has just opened a new "campus "just before these bills were passed and President Bush is in tight with this agency. This Texas Adoption agency was saying they have a lot of open beds for pregnant Moms and then comes these bills? Does something smell? Also, one of the big agencies at the National Council for Adoptions has listed as a contact agency an agency that is a big, church run conservative institution. 

 

     I read the documents well before they deleted some of them and they stated that they need to focus on white babies because there isn't much of a demand for babies of color. Again, here's the 60's revisited. It was suggested that birth control be taught more to women of color. The reason I believe that many believed the testimony before Congress was because they didn't hear testimony from us Moms and our children about the harm done to us by being separated from each other. Remember these bills are not for the purpose of anything but to bring in more INFANTS. And in truth the government was promised a savings in tax monies although Bush just pushed the 10,000 dollar incentive to adopt, including infants, through. Just think what a single Mom could do with $10,000? Some may say well there are open adoptions now and I say many young Moms are coming forth saying they had never been told their contact could be slammed shut once the adoption became final. And that is exactly what happened. Interestingly, the agencies failed to inform the Moms of this

 

    All we Moms and adopted children of adoption loss have is our truth and integrity. We don't have the money that the adoption brokers have. We have the resolve to fight for the rights of all women and children poor and middle class that Republicans have such a hatred for. And yet they have no problem taking their children to sell to their friends at the adoption agencies. We hope that our voices are heard for the sake of all women and children.

 

    And we also need your help. Here are a few things you can do to help:

 Write to your congressman/woman and tell them it is not OK to support the separating of Mothers and children for no reason other than they are poor. Ask them what they are doing to preserve familles? Write letters to the editors of your local paper informing parents/grandparents of the intent of our government into separating their children and grandchildren from them. Praise them for showing true family values by keeping their children/grandchildren close to them with love and support. 

If you belong to a church or temple ask the congregation to embrace a young Mom and her child into fellowship not for the purpose of removing her child from her but in true support.

Last but Not least, we really need to restore a family friendly administration into office and vote out the Republican agenda of America being good for only the wealthy.  

Linda Webber, mommaL3@aol.com Activist for the rights of Mother's and children to be free from adoption coercion.

Mentor for young Moms that are parenting their children
Wife, Mother of two sons and one reunited daughter 
Grandmother of four children
Some interesting links

 
3/5/2004

Thank you for printing the article by the birthmother whose child was stolen from her through adoption.  I am an adoptee and it is so unfair for adults who were adopted as children to have their own original birth certificates sealed from them, even when they reach adulthood.

My birthmom died while searching for me and I wasn't able to meet her.  It makes us feel like continual children to have to beg judges for the same birth information that other Americans take for granted!  We don't have our own family medical histories, and when they make us use registries we feel like criminals. 
The National Council for Adoption is using taxpayers money to train teachers, hospital workers, social workers how to coerce young mothers into giving up their children for adoption.  I went to this training and they do not tell the professionals of any of the rights of the child to know his/her biological identity, or how painful adoption is once the adoptee and birthmom realize they have lost out.  It is only for money, and baby commodities for infertile couples - with no regard for the child.  They say it is "in the best interest" of the child - but then keep records closed so that the unethical practices can be covered. 
The website for the government funded training is www.infantadopt.com
We need to stop lawmakers from reinstituting this bill every year - they say it is to help get foster children adopted - but in truth, the money is used for coercion so they can get healthy white infants for infertile couples. 
Surrogacy, egg and sperm donation, and adoption ALL disregard the rights of the child who is affected. 
Samantha Franklin
Tulsa, OK
also, "Twenty Things Adopted Kids Wish Their Parent's Knew" by Sherrie Eldridge
Kudos, Linda, on exposing the hidden truths so many of us endured. 
'Relinquishment' and the subsequent adoption of babies has for so long been deemed a 'noble' 'selfless' and gratitude producing 'act of love'. 
However, it is time to expose the lies.  The act of separating babies from their mothers as a means to fill the arms of childless couples is a heartwrenching, traumatic experience, for both mother and child.  It is a profound ache that many mothers live with, often unresolved.  And all too often the true repercussions of 'relinquishing' are minimized by adoption 'professionals' who advocate for the annihilation of the core of the family unit.  Of course, they would have to diminish the significance of the blood bond as well as the spiritual and emotional bond formed in the prenatal and neonatal period to procure the commodity of their industry: an infant.  The lies and manipulative tactics of adoption brokers must be exposed.  But it seems our dear Dubya sees the billion dollar adoption industry (and make no mistake, it is an industry, billions of dollars of revenues yearly is hardly a non profit endeavor) as a lucrative boost to our economy..But at what cost?? 
At the cost of mothers whose lives are forever changed.
The subsequent realization that their supposed 'act of love' was in a fact an erroneous, irrevocable belief in the proclamations of the brokers, they were duped into believing they were not best for their own children?  A little adoption broker tactics aside: Their primary goal is to ensure that the economically challenged or young mother realizes her inadequacies, and ensures her that there are 'better', translated into = wealthier, more stable, translated into = married, and 'better equipped= has never parented either, but this sure does sound appealing, however fallacious it is, parents out there to raise her child. 
Or do we blindly continue....
At the cost of these babies who grow up suffering often times, identity integration dilemmas and other psychopathies?  Or even of those adoptees who have not made a conscious connection that their inner turmoil is due to the separation from their first mothers, yet they acknowledge having a constant or nagging longing to know?  And when they do seek to find the answers to their genealogical questioning, the truth surrounding their heritage, their genetic propensities or dispositions, they encounter legislative measures that have made it almost  criminal to procure such fundamental truths, they are legally barred from them.  Many adoptees will attest, as will their original, true and correct 'BIRTH' certificate (which is filed away, sealed and replaced with an 'amended' one) that they were given false information in regards to their actual date, time and place of birth to impede the ability to attain such information, when it would be desired (had they not believed an adopted person would in fact want this information, they would not have the need to falsify it years before.)  For those of us who are not adopted, this is rudimentary knowledge, knowledge we in fact take for granted. 
If documentation within the medical and psychiatric community did not exist their would be little or no standing for those of us who KNOW in our hearts that adoption was not 'best' for our children, or ourselves, but such documentation does exist and speaks to the pain endured by our adopted children.
We, then, are left with a dilemma, continue to sit quietly by and allow the misconceptions surrounding the effects of adoption on mother and child, or raise our voices in outrage in light of  this  brutal Legislation, the true annihilation of family values. 
 
 
As a reunited mom to my son who was procured by adoption brokers when I was only 15, not legally able to even sign up for my own medical insurance or legally seek benefits to care for my child, however I was legally able to sign a document called 'Irrevocable termination of parental rights'... The scales of justice were tipped against mine and my son's rights to life, liberty and our pursuit of happiness, because believe me, he is, as am I, still struggling to attain equilibrium from the horrific blow to the spirit, mind, heart and soul of the both of us. 
Christina Neuhold
Reunited Mother of
Jonathan Michael
2/20/99

 

March 3

Thank you for publishing, Bush Admin Pushes Grabbing Babies From Poor Women So Wealthy Can Adopt by Linda Webber.   As the grandmother of a baby kidnapped in a fraudulent adoption scam, I can attest to the pain and lifelong suffering of the family members of children who are taken from their real families through the use of fraud and coercion.   You can never forgive yourself for not being stronger and for falling for their lies and threats.  
 
Any young mother who makes the mistake of being willing to hear their sales pitch, has set herself up for disaster.  First they get you to sign non-binding papers in "consideration" of an adoption, then once you do, the lies and threats start pouring in, until during those precious few hours in your hospital bed, doped up on medication, they are there with pen and coercion, and what ever threats are needed to get you to sign, and the hospital staff has no obligation to protect you. 
 
The same nurses who would tell a patient on the same medication, that he/she can not drive a vehicle or sign legal papers, who has a patient's spouse sign in acknowledgement of medical orders instead of the patient, turn a blind eye to signing away ones own child.
 
Melinda Walmsley
Minneapolis KS
March 2
Thank you Linda Webber for bringing to light in "Bush Pushes Grabbing Babies From Poor Women So Wealthy Can Adopt," the horrific and very painful, lifelong consequences of removing babies from defenseless, financially stressed single mothers.
 
Social work history clearly shows this intent, in a book published by the National Association of Social Workers in 1964 (the "baby scoop era"):  "Because there are many more married couples wanting to adopt newborn white babies than there are babies, it may almost be said that they, rather than out of wedlock babies are a social problem... Sometimes social workers in adoption agencies have facetiously suggested setting up social provisions for more 'baby breeding'."
 
This country must stop tearing apart mothers and children. It must honor life's most sacred bond and join the rest of the world in supporting and preserving natural families.
 
Karen Wilson Buterbaugh
Richmond, Virginia
"Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948-1998)
Article 25:  (2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection."
Co-author, "Adoption Healing, a path to recovery for mothers who lost children to adoption," www.adoptionhealing.com

 

march 1

Dear editor:

As a mother who lost her child to baby brokers in 1990, I thank you for publishing the excellent article "Bush Admin Pushes Grabbing Babies From Poor Women So Wealthy Can Adopt" by Linda Webber. I hope this article will help educate people about the wrongness of tearing families apart and buying and selling human beings under the guise of "adoption."

Bernadette Wright

Fairfax, VA

 

I have read Linda Webber's letter,(Bush Admin Pushes Grabbing Babies From Poor Women So Wealthy Can Adopt by Linda Webber,) on adoption, and feel that she has done a great job expressing us moms, who lost their child to adoption.  I hope that many more people come aware of our life time of grief caused to us, and our children, due to the adoption. My pain, and grief will never end.  I pray that somehow, in the future, more young moms are not coerced into relinquishing their children to the adoption industry. 

  Reunited Mom. Maria Santos

 
Enter Your E-mail address to Receive OpEdNews Newsletter Tell A Friend  Contribute $$ to OpEdNews